


Life Lessons

by StarKidMcFly



Category: The Book of Mormon - Ambiguous Fandom, The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: F/M, Gen, I'll update the character list as I go!, M/M, anxious kevin, but i know it's gonna be a lot of kimbay and ghali, i can tell you that for nothing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-06-16 05:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15429549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarKidMcFly/pseuds/StarKidMcFly
Summary: "For those who are supposed to teach, you boys have a lot to learn."Or: five times the District Nine Elders learnt more from the people of Kitguli than the people of Kitguli learnt from them.





	1. Mugoyo

**Author's Note:**

> I fell in deep with Book of Mormon about a month and a half ago, and I've not yet managed to clamber back out of the hole. I just loved the idea of the Mormon boys of District Nine learning more than they taught in Kitguli, and especially the idea of the villagers just being perplexed by just how little these kids know. I hope you enjoy!

“For those who are supposed to teach,” Kimbay says, an amused look on her face as she places her glass back down on the table, “your boys have a lot to learn, Elder McKinley.”

Connor looks up from where he is slumped on the table and nods weakly. “You’re telling me.”

Kimbay laughs at his expression, and Kalimba and Asmeret both giggle too. Connor McKinley, sunburnt and exhausted looking, has been sitting with his head in his hands for the past twenty minutes after banishing Neeley and Michaels from the kitchen. The women arrived just as Connor was fanning out a fire with a tea towel, screaming bloody murder at the two young men, and sitting down only when Kalimba forced him to, Asmeret opening the window and the door to let the smoke out. The window sticks shut, it hasn’t been open in so long. They heeded Nabulungi’s warnings when they moved in probably more than they should have, but they were naïve American boys who didn’t know any better back then, and maybe some of that naïvety has stuck about.

“I suppose you will be cooking the dinner tonight, then.” Kimbay sounds amused. Connor does not look it.

“No dinner,” he replies miserably. “That’s this evening’s rations destroyed. It’s either nothing at all or I have to serve up those beans. I can’t be re-rationing, otherwise they’ll never learn not to do it again.” He looks forlornly at the black tar mess of beans stuck to the bottom of their biggest pan.

Kalimba snorts. “You have rations?” she asks curiously. “You are Americans. You have food and money. You do not need rations.”

“Yeah, well, we also kind of broke all the rules and started a cult, so, the Church isn’t exactly all that happy with us right now, and most of our parents aren’t feeling that generous, either, so.” Connor gestures vaguely to the pan. “Dinner has literally gone up in flames. Honestly, I’m surprised they only destroyed the beans, but they don’t have a brain cell between them, so I guess it’s my fault I tasked them with cooking when they’re about as bright as the potatoes they’re peeling.” He looks shocked for a moment, and grimaces. “Sorry, Sisters, that was horrible of me. They’re lovely boys, they don’t deserve me speaking so ill of them.”

He obviously isn’t expecting the three women to start laughing at his outburst, and looks mildly affronted. Kimbay nudges Asmeret. “I told you this one was sassy.”

Asmeret grins. “I like you, white boy.”

“Oh,” Connor says, looking slightly perplexed, face turning pink. “Um. Thanks?”

“We will teach you how to fix this mess,” Kalimba announces, standing up. “You say there are potatoes?”

Connor nods towards a sack by the sink. “We can spare five. So, beanless potatoes.” He looks at the pan once again. “Or potatoes and ash, I guess.”  

Kimbay raises an eyebrow. “This is what you eat?” she asks, sounding mildly disgusted. Connor’s face shoots up to meet her gaze.

“We don’t have much else,” he says simply. Asmeret looks horrified, holding a potato Kalimba has just tossed her, who is wearing an expression of equal dismay.

“No spices?” she asks, voice sounding weak.

Connor shakes his head.

Asmeret lets out a low whistle. “Your poor boys,” she says, shaking her head. Connor raises his eyebrows.

“ _My_ poor boys?” It’s not clear whether he’s noting the possessive or his exclusion from her sympathy.

Asmeret nods solemnly. “You serve them this bland shit? No wonder they set it on fire! Beans and potatoes and not a single spice. Come here, white boy. I will teach you to make mugoyo.”

“They’re not - it’s not -” Connor stammers, turning a brighter red than his sunburn. “I’m a good cook!”

“Potatoes and beans are not good cooking,” Kimbay announces at the same time as Kalimba lets out a derisive cackle. Connor reddens further.

“Come here, Elder McKinley,” Kalimba says, voice soothing, and she reaches to pull him up. “Asmeret knows how to make good mugoyo. And I,” she adds, conspiratorially, “know how to make good gossip.”

Kimbay hums a tune, flanks Connor on the other side, and hands him a sweet potato and a knife, as Kalimba puts her arm around his shoulders and demonstrates her skill.

 

\---

 

“No,” Connor says, and he’s laughing so hard that there are genuine tears springing to his eyes, hand clutching at his ribs. “No way. So he really ate it?”

Kalimba nods gleefully as she removes the beans from the heat where she’s boiling them. “He sure will not be complaining about my cooking again,” she tells him, eyes sparkling mischievously. “Alright, these are softened enough that you won’t notice so much that they were…” She searches for a word.

“Combusted,” Kimbay supplies helpfully as Asmeret says “turned to ash” and Connor suggests “cremated”. They look at each other, and burst into the kind of laughter you get between close friends, the kind where everything is hysterical, even if it's not very funny at all. Kimbay watches as Connor dabs at his eyes with his tie, and wonders when the last time he's laughed like this was. Mugoyo takes a long time to make, and so Kimbay vows silently to herself that she will make sure this pasty little thing enjoys himself as much as he can while they're here.  

“When you add the sweet potato it will drown the taste,” Asmeret informs him, removing the pan from the hob and giving the beans a stir, and Connor looks at her like she is a goddess. It's quite touching, really, Kimbay thinks. “Then we make a dough. It is delicious the way I make it.”

“It is delicious always,” interrupts Kalimba. "My mother-in-law makes excellent mugoyo." 

“It is delicious always, even when Kalimba's mother-in-law makes it,” amends Asmeret as she places the pan down on the counter and moves to inspect the sweet potatoes Connor has peeled. “But it is especially delicious when I make it. You know why?” Elder McKinley shakes his head. Asmeret gives him a smile that shows all of her teeth. "Because I add spices, Elder. A little bit of flavour gets you so much further." 

Kimbay smiles. “Finish your story for the white boy,” she tells Kalimba, and Connor nods eagerly.

It’s nice, standing around, cooking and gossiping and sharing. This is the first time Kimbay thinks she’s seen this boy look genuinely happy since he arrived four months ago. In fact, all of the white boys look happier, she thinks. Maybe their coming here has been mutually beneficial. She knows Nabulungi has taken them fully into her heart - Mafala's daughter spends an enormous amount of time with Arnold Cunningham, although Kimbay has caught her recently chatting a lot under trees with the District Leader. Maybe there is something in that.

“You’re getting closer with Nabulungi,” Kimbay comments after a moment, deciding that, as gossiping goes, there is no time like the present. Connor looks up at her and nods. She waits for him to expand. He doesn’t. “I thought she was getting closer with Prophet Cunningham.”

“You should know, Elder McKinley,” adds Kalimba, and she’s got a mischievous twinkle in her eye. It’s the twinkle that appears whenever she’s about to spread some particularly juicy gossip, or when she’s about to tell Kimbay something that she probably absolutely should not be sharing. “The women of Kitguli are a tight-knit family. You white boys are nice, but if one of you were to hurt Nabulungi, then we will leave you so you shit sideways.”

“Um…”

“With that in mind,” Asmeret says, and now _she’s_ got the twinkle in her eyes, and Kimbay can’t help but grin at the expression on the redhead’s face, like he’s being circled by vultures. This is far too fun. “We cannot help but notice how close you’ve grown. So? You like her?”

Connor looks confused for a moment, then his eyes widen and he turns pink, shaking his head. “No,” he says quickly, looking mildly horrified. Kimbay's eyes narrow. “No, no, no, it’s not like that.”

“It’s not?” Asmeret sounds sceptical, and a little protective. Kimbay puts her hands on her hips, and even Kalimba raises an eyebrow. “Then what is it like?”

“No,” Connor says, and amends quickly, “she’s incredibly beautiful and lovely and she’s a brilliant friend, but we don’t like each other like… that. We’re just really good friends, I think. I hope.” He’s turning as red as his hair. “I don’t like her like that, I promise. I think my life would be easier if I did,” he adds in a mumble, then looks mortified for his admission.

Kimbay exchanges a glance with her girls, and they decide in a series of shared glances that he’s alright. He looks uncomfortable, like he’s sitting on a piece of information that he doesn’t quite understand himself, but not dishonest, or flippant, or disrespectful.

Kalimba is the first to take pity. “Knead this dough,” she instructs, and that look of grateful awe returns to his face, and she rolls her eyes.

They gossip some more (it's a long process making mugoyo, so it's perfect for complaining and bitching), and Connor lets that carefully constructed composure slip a little and bitches about how gross his Mormon boys are, how Thomas leaves crumbs everywhere when he sneaks food into their room which attracts all manner of horrible creature, and how Michaels’ feet stink and he doesn’t look even mildly ashamed about it, and how Church snores so loud he has on more than one occasion suspected a warthog has broken into the bedroom next door. The women laugh, and talk about how when Gotswana burps you can taste whatever he’s eaten, and how one of Kimbay’s sons has learnt some gross swear words and has been teaching her entire class behind her back, and how Kalimba’s husband dribbles all over their bed whenever he falls asleep. They swap complaints, they tell each other other people’s secrets, and they have a great time.

When the mugoyo is finished, Asmeret forcefeeds Connor a bite. “Maybe if you eat some decent food you will fatten up,” she tells him as he chews the mouthful. “Well?”

“Oh my gosh.” Connor sighs almost blissfully, and Asmeret grins.

“I told you I was good.”

Connor nods, eyes wide. “The best,” he agrees. “You can’t even tell these beans were burnt!”

“You can,” Kalimba disagrees, and Asmeret gives her a hard look. “It doesn’t taste as good as usual.”

“It’s better than anything I could make,” Connor says with a shrug, and Asmeret’s glare melts into a warm smile as she gives him a friendly punch on the shoulder.

“I knew I was right to like you.”

Connor invites them to stay for dinner, and they politely decline. He insists, and then they decline a little more rudely, and he grins.

“Thank you, Sisters,” he tells them, and he sounds genuinely grateful. Kimbay gives him a warm smile. She likes this kid. “Gosh, meal time will be a lot more interesting now.”

“You need to feed your boys more Ugandan dishes,” Kalimba tells him with a smirk, “not that bland shit you call food.”

“We will teach you,” adds Asmeret, and it’s more of a declaration than an offer. “Not the two who set things on fire though. They are a lost cause. You can still be saved.”

Something flashes across his face at that, an uneasy expression, but it quickly dissipates. “Deal.”

Asmeret touches his arm, gives it a rub, and he smiles warmly at her. “Well,” she says. “Call in your boys and eat. Tomorrow you come to mine for dinner, and I’ll teach you what spice is.”

“Yeah?”

Asmeret grins. “Tomorrow I teach you how to make curried potatoes.”

 

\---

 

Two and a half years later, Connor stands in the kitchen of his tiny apartment. He thinks it’s the kind of place eighteen year old Connor McKinley would have been horrified to end up in, back when he had aspirations of becoming a high-earning academic or a Tony-winning Broadway star. Of course, that was before he went to Uganda, accidentally started a cult and fell halfway in love with a boy that led to him abandoning pretty much all of the principles he’d set out for himself in the first nineteen years of his life. Now pushing twenty-two year old Connor is very much content with this kitchen, especially when he feels arms snake around his waist and a chin on his shoulder.

“Cooking real food?” Kevin asks, sounding impressed. “I didn’t know you ate anything that you couldn’t prepare in less than three minutes.”

“Yeah, well,” he replies, as Kevin nuzzles at his neck, “I was feeling a bit homesick and I remembered this one recipe Asmeret gave me once when Michaels almost burnt down the hut.” He doesn’t feel the need to tell Kevin that the reason he’s making it is because he almost set fire to the kitchen just now trying to heat up a can of kidney beans. “It gets rid of the burnt taste.”

“Mugoyo?” Kevin asks, and Connor nods. Kevin hums in his ear, raising goosebumps. “You got so good at making that in the end.”

“Let’s see if I still remember how to make it, then,” he replies, grinning. He sighs. “You know, that was probably the first time I really felt at home in Uganda. Like, I felt so frazzled all the time trying to keep you lot from killing each other or yourselves, and pretending to be someone I wasn’t, and trying to figure out ways I could persuade the Church to take us back and give us funding so we could get all the malaria nets.”

He can feel Kevin smile into his shoulder. “You got way cuter once you started relaxing more, you know. And a lot better at cooking.”

“I didn't know you liked my cooking.”

“Well, I didn't say that, now, did I?”

Connor rolls his eyes and smacks Kevin's hand away from where he's trying to pinch a bit of rice. “I wonder what they're doing right now,” he says - and immediately regrets it. Kevin stiffens too, but then merely tightens the arm he has around Connor’s waist. It's subtle and comforting. Connor appreciates it.

They both do and don't talk about Uganda. They discuss memories sometimes before they can stop themselves, laugh about little things, hug each other when one of them remembers something upsetting. They don't like to speculate, though. Every time Connor thinks of Uganda, he thinks of Kimbay, and of Mafala, and of Gotswana, all of them already rapidly deteriorating from illness before they left. It hurts to imagine how ill they could be now, if they're still -

“It’s eight now,” Kevin informs him, stopping him from ruminating. His arm is still tight around Connor’s waist in some pale imitation of a hug. “So it must be the middle of the night there. I assume they’re sleeping.”

Connor shrugs, and then grabs a spoonful of the mixture. “Try this,” he commands, spinning to face Kevin and forcing the spoonful into his boyfriend’s mouth.

Kevin chews and nods.

“Good?” Connor asks.

Kevin seems to consider it for a moment. Then he says, “well, it’s not Asmeret level, but it’s better than the normal stuff you serve up,” he says.

Connor takes it. Asmeret is the best cook he’s ever known. To have learnt something from her is the best lesson he can ever receive.

“So it tastes alright?”

Kevin nods. “Tastes like home,” he replies.


	2. Simba

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You are young. The world is always hurrying when you are young. But when you slow down, you learn the things that other people consider important, and what their passions are, and you become interested in those, and you see how keen they are to learn, so you forgive their mistakes. You become fond of your students.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Even the difficult ones?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _Kimbay’s smile is glittering. “Especially the difficult ones.”_

“Wait,” Elder Thomas interrupts, and Kimbay and Nabulungi exchange a bemused glance. “Lion is ‘simba’?”

“That is what Nabulungi just told you, no?” Kimbay has this perfect tone of patience on her, Nabulungi notes. There's no wonder she is the teacher - she has a relaxed temperament.

She needs one with the two boys they're currently trying to teach.

Honestly, she thinks the children ask less questions than Elder Thomas, and Elder Church is quiet for most of their lessons before asking some profound question to do with syntax or the logic behind it, which honestly throws them both.

“Who gives a shit about syntax?” Nabulungi finds herself saying one day, defensively, when he asks about a rule she wasn't aware existed. “You just speak, and you either make sense or you do not. Not everything is a logic puzzle, Elder Church.”

Elder Church, to his credit, looks sheepishly apologetic, and she's softened a lot since then. It could be worse, she tells herself, thinking of the lessons they hold with Arnold and Kevin. Neither of them have any interest in it whatsoever.

“So,” Elder Thomas continues, eyes wide, “Mufasa literally named his kid ‘Lion’ in the Lion King?” He looks between Kimbay, Nabulungi and Elder Church. Elder Church, the only one with an inkling as to what he's going on about, nods. Elder Thomas lets out a low whistle. “Maybe he's not as great a dad as I thought.”

The Swahili lessons have been taking place for about a month now. It makes sense for Kimbay to lead them - she is a teacher, after all, and a bloody good one, even by her own admission, but vehemently supported by Nabulungi - especially as all of the villagers have a good level of English, while the Elders could definitely use some practice. Still, Kimbay is woefully outnumbered, and so she commissions Nabulungi and Ghali to help her. Nabulungi thinks that Ghali is also a lot more patient than she is, but then again, she imagines if Ghali taught Arnold, or Elder Thomas or Elder Church, he’d probably be growing steadily more exasperated.

After the lesson finishes, and Elder Church and Elder Thomas both thank them profusely before disappearing off to help her father with a construction project in the village, Nabulungi looks over at Kimbay with an exhausted expression. “I do not know how you manage to be so patient with them,” she tells Kimbay honestly. “I thought I was patient - I deal with Elder Cunningham daily. But you - you truly have the patience of a Saint.” She’s heard this expression from Elder McKinley, and she likes it. “What is your secret?”

Kimbay grins. “It is years of teaching,” she explains, patting Nabulungi on the shoulder. “You are young. The world is always hurrying when you are young. But when you slow down, you learn the things that other people consider important, and what their passions are, and you become interested in those, and you see how keen they are to learn, so you forgive their mistakes. You become fond of your students.”

“Even the difficult ones?”

Kimbay’s smile is glittering. “ _Especially_ the difficult ones.”

\---

It may be exasperating, Nabulungi thinks after three months of trying to teach the Elders Swahili, but at the same time, it’s fun. Baba always says that learning a language opens twice as many doors, and it’s interesting watching the Elders rattle against the locks, testing new phrases and fumbling through pronunciations, until the doors begin to open, and they learn new little pockets of Ugandan culture.

They’re at varying levels, so far. All of them came to Uganda with a basic knowledge to help them preach their gospel, but they’re severely lacking in the everyday _useful_ vocabulary - words for animals and foods and descriptions. Although Kimbay, Nabulungi and Ghali tend to teach them the more formal lessons, each of the villagers share vocabulary important to their trade. Gotswana has been teaching the Elders medical jargon while they’ve been helping out. Afterwards, Nabulungi is sure that Sadaka is teaching them phrases pertinent to a good old gossip.

The thing that the Elders seem really interested in though is the Ugandan folktales, and that’s where Ghali really comes into his element. Aural traditions are strong in Kitguli, and it’s nice, sometimes, to sit around the campfire and share in some stories. From the Elders, it is always Arnold who tells stories. Nabulungi could watch Arnold speak for days on end. He morphs into a different person when he performs tales, animatedly acting them out for the villagers, getting the children involved to act out smaller parts, always forcing Elder Price to play the villain and Elder McKinley to play whatever spare part he needs. His stories are fun, if a little far-fetched.

For the Ugandans though, it’s Ghali who is the best storyteller. He has a timbre to his voice that is perfect for narrating. He can sound mysterious, the campfire flickering and glinting on his skin, or soft, when the crackling of the fire complements his voice, or funny, when the melody of his laugh rings through in his words. Nabulungi has noticed how Elder Thomas and Elder Church in particular lean forward to try and learn as much as they can, and she notices how they’re beginning to improve in their understanding, responding to each of the stories more and more as their knowledge of Swahili increases.

They start bringing lists of vocabulary to their lessons, asking Nabulungi and Kimbay to help them decipher the meaning, and Ghali teaches them the stories he’s told, picking apart the morals they teach with them both. Nabulungi will never admit it out loud, but Kimbay was right - the difficult ones _have_ become her favourite students. She can see Kimbay’s recognised it though from the way she smirks over as Nabulungi chats with Elder Church about folktales her mother used to tell her before she fell asleep as a child.

Kimbay says nothing though, and Nabulungi finds herself looking forward more and more to Elder Church and Elder Thomas's lesson in particular. They work hard, and the fact that they ask difficult questions mean that they provide her with a bit of a challenge - and Nabulungi Hatimbi never backs down from a challenge. Besides, they're the two that seem to be making the most progress. Sure, Elder McKinley's Swahili is a lot better than theirs, and Elder Neeley is the only one of the group who seems to have a natural aptitude for languages, but Elder Church and Elder Thomas are the two who have come on the most, letting go of their inhibitions and their concerns about syntax and grammar and really starting to  _feel_ the language instead, as it should be.

That isn't to say they're not without their doubts though. Sometimes, when they make a mistake that they deem stupid, they both get wound up, and Nabulungi has to use all of her newly acquired patience to try and calm them down, to keep them on track and convince them that it's okay, and that they just need to try again. Elder Price told her once that Rome wasn't built in a day, and that's another expression she's decided she likes, even if she had to ask him what exactly he meant by it. 

One day, when Elder Thomas seems to be getting very frustrated over a certain phrase that he just _can’t_ wrap his tongue around, Nabulungi sticks her hand out and rests her palm against his forearm. “Take a deep breath,” she tells him in English, and he looks up at her, sucking in air and exhaling slowly. “You have to be patient, Elder Thomas.”

“But Elder Church is saying it _fine_ ,” Elder Thomas replies, a whine to his voice, and Elder Church shuffles awkwardly next to him. “I don’t understand why I can’t just get my head around it. I’ve been working so hard for _months_ and I feel like I’m getting nowhere.”

Nabulungi looks at him with a frown. “I think you have gotten further than you think, Elder Thomas,” she tells him matter-of-factly. “In your first month, you spent all of your time trying to distract us into talking about unrelated things in English. You did not know how to communicate without speaking the words of the Church. Now you are learning to recite stories with Ghali. That is not going nowhere.”

Elder Thomas doesn’t say anything, but he looks ever so slightly less defeatist.

Nabulungi smiles warmly as she thinks of what Kimbay told her, and says, “you are young.”

“I’m twenty next month,” Elder Thomas rebukes.

“And I am twenty-two at the end of the year,” Nabulungi replies, grinning. “Perhaps I am young too. When you are young, though, you run through life, and anything that takes time seems impossible. But some things _do_ take time, Elder Thomas. Some things you never stop learning. The point is that you _are_ learning,” she finishes, “and that is the positive to take away.”

As Elder Thomas breaks a smile, she thinks that maybe she is learning too.

\---

What’s really nice is when, after six months of Swahili lessons, Elder Thomas’s mother sends him a package full of American foods, and he and Elder Church teach the children how to make s’mores around the fire. Nabulungi thinks they’re incredibly sugary, but they’re delicious, and it’s worth it to see the look on the children’s faces. One of Kimbay’s daughters pulls an expression like she’s bitten into a cloud.

“Will you tell us a story?” Ghali’s brother Mukasa asks, looking at Elder Thomas as though he has become his new hero. Nabulungi smiles at the little boy, her shoulder pressing against Elder McKinley’s, and then looks up to meet Elder Thomas’s gaze. He looks a little stricken - normally the storytellers are Ghali and Arnold, both of whom have a particular talent for making the kids giggle - and the way he’s looking at Nabulungi makes her feel as though he’s trying to have a conversation with her with his eyes.

Nabulungi has never been one for subtlety, so she clears her throat and points at Elder Church. “Elder Church will help Elder Poptarts too,” she announces, and Mukasa’s eyes widen in delight, Ghali and Kimbay grinning behind them. “They will tell it in Swahili,” she adds, and if there’s a wicked grin on her face, well, no one mentions it.

Elder Thomas and Elder Church both look at her in horror, but she gives them an encouraging nod, and the pair stand up. They’re nervous at first, and oddly, Nabulungi feels nervous for them, but they get into it eventually, ignoring their mistakes and focusing on the telling of the story. At one point, Elder Thomas invites Mukasa to get involved, and then a couple of the other children, and Nabulungi smiles as she watches how animated they become. They’ve learnt well, she thinks, and she allows herself that small glow of pride as she watches them.

\---

At age twenty-six, Elder Church and Elder Thomas have become James and Chris, and though they’re back in America with schedules so very different to Nabulungi’s, they still make time to meet up once a month and have a conversation in Swahili.

They say it’s to keep up the practice - Chris is a paediatric nurse now, and he works with a vibrant community of people so he insists his language skills will come in useful, while James has recently become a teacher at an elementary school and wants to teach the kids something a bit different - but it means everything to Nabulungi, who is living eight thousand miles away from everything she’s ever known. Although she loves Arnold, and she’s grateful for her new life in the US, the fact that she can be afforded this little pocket of home every now and again is something that just makes everything that little bit easier.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Chris tells her eagerly, pointing his index finger at Nabulungi in his excitement. James bashes his hand down, muttering about how it’s rude to point. Chris continues, unabashed, “Or well, James has something to tell you. You're up, buddy."

James raises an eyebrow at him. " _Thanks,_ Chris," he says, and Chris either completely misses his sarcasm or ignores it as he makes an encouraging gesture for him to carry on. "I’m getting to run an assembly for my class. We’re going to tell a Ugandan folktale for the school! I mean,” he adds as an afterthought, “it’s probably going to have to be in English seeing as I’ve mostly just taught them the odd work in Swahili, but I think it would be good to try and get some vocabulary in, _and_ I was wondering if maybe you wanted to help. I thought maybe you could teach my class some basic phrases, you know, get them interested.”

Chris nudges him with his elbow, still looking eager. James raises an eyebrow, then says, “oh, and you too, if you wanted.” He turns back to Nabulungi. “What do you say, Naba?”

Nabulungi is a bit taken aback by the question, but she nods. “When would it be?” she asks curiously.

“A couple of weeks, I think!” James responds brightly. He then smiles at Nabulungi warmly. “I know it’s a lot to ask, really, and you probably hated teaching us, but I learnt a lot from you, and there’s no one I know who I would trust to teach my kids more than you.” He pauses. “But please don’t teach them anything rude,” he adds, looking worried. “I couldn’t afford the lawsuit if their parents found out, and I have some naughty kids in my class.”

Nabulungi can’t speak for a moment. She feels touched, deeply so, and in truth, she would love it. Chris almost looks more interested than James, although he’s smiling at her with the same grateful expression. She’s worried that if she says anything to do with his compliment, she’ll burst into tears, so instead she works her face into a smirk, and says, “well, I had two very difficult students once, but I liked the challenge. In fact, they became my favourites. Don’t tell my husband,” she adds conspiratorially, and both James and Chris laugh. 

“I’m going to phone him right now this minute,” Chris says, pretending to pull out his phone, and then adds with a wicked grin, “ _and_ I’ll phone Kevin and Connor while I’m at it. Both of them will be devastated to find out they weren’t teacher’s pet.”

Nabulungi knows he’s joking, but she can well imagine the affronted look on Kevin’s face and the sarcastic comment she’d probably receive from Connor. She smiles a bit.

“I’ll do it,” she tells James, and he beams. “But first things first.” He looks up at her, waiting to hear her request. “Have you already told them that ‘simba’ means ‘lion’? Because I cannot be having that conversation again.”

Her difficult ones both grin sheepishly, and she smiles as she thinks about how far they’ve come from those gangly teenagers learning her language, rattling doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos and comments on the first chapter! A lot of this is based off of my own experience with both language teaching and learning - I am all too familiar with the frustrations of both learning and teaching, and honestly, they aren't kidding when they say patience is a virtue. I'm not as happy with this one, but thank you for reading again! Also, if you can't tell, I really love Kimbay.


	3. Sore Throat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Just because the man next to you broke his foot once in the past, it does not make the toe you just stubbed any less painful. Pain is relative, Elder Price, and stubbed toes fucking hurt.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the support so far! I found I just couldn't get the point that I was trying to make across in this chapter very well, so it might be subject to change in the future! 
> 
> Just a couple of notes:  
> \- This chapter is set in Gotswana's surgery, so there is a lot of discussion of injuries and illnesses - nothing graphic, but just a content warning of sorts!  
> \- There is also a scene discussing anxiety, again, nothing too graphic, but a content warning for that too.
> 
> Thank you!

“How the fuck did you do this, Elder Price?”

Kevin Price looks up with a morose expression at Gotswana, and it’s all Sadaka can do not to laugh as Gotswana narrows his eyes at the young Mormon.

“I didn't mean to,” is all said-Mormon replies sullenly, a pout on his lips that makes Sadaka have to cover her own to hide the smile that is threatening to appear.

In front of him, Gotswana sighs, and a grin emerges onto his face. He absolutely knows how Elder Price did this. They all do. Sadaka wants to draw a sketch so she can commit it to memory. “I am sure most people who fall out of trees do not mean to, Elder,” he replies, holding his hand out in a gesture for Kevin to present his injury.

Sadaka leans forward curiously as Gotswana examines the wound on his arm. It’s quite shallow, but Sadaka recognises that it will need to be disinfected quickly - he’s managed to get a lot of dirt in it where he’s landed on the ground.

One of the highlights of the Elders coming to Kitguli is that now that they’ve agreed to stay, they’ve started using their funds to secure useful things for the village. Rather than giving them out books, they’ve started dishing out medical supplies and malaria nets and food. Elder Church’s mother sends a first aid kit every other month, and luckily Elder Price has managed to time his injury with a recent shipment.

Sadaka reaches for the new first aid kit and fetches some anti-bacterial wipes and a damp cloth, quickly moving to clean up his arm. Kevin pauses in his busy schedule of feeling sorry for himself to flash her a grateful smile, and Sadaka sees why people seem to forgive him anything. She rolls her eyes, but graces him with a smile in return, then proceeds to use the anti-bacterial wipes to clean out the cut.

Elder Price winces; the wipes clearly sting. Sadaka grins at him. “That hurts?” she asks, and her expression is slightly teasing, but he looks so put out and like he’s feeling so very sorry for himself that her smile softens.

“I guess you get way worse stuff in here,” he mumbles, and Sadaka and Gotswana exchange a look.

“Maybe,” Gotswana says after a moment, shrugging. “What of it?”

Kevin looks very upset at this. “You probably think I’m being some big baby,” he says after a moment, and Sadaka realises that his eyes look a little red. “You probably deal with way worse stuff than this. I bet if Mutumbo fell out of a tree, he’d get up and walk it off. Or if Asmeret did it, she’d probably glare at it until it burst into flames. None of them would come running to you almost cr-” He cuts himself off, and elects to pout at the floor instead.

Sadaka continues to smile at him as Gotswana hands her a bandage, though it’s the sort of fond smile you give a crying child as opposed to her usual teasing smirk. She carefully begins to wrap up his arm, pulling the bandage in a figure of eight around his fingers. Kevin watches her after a moment.

Gotswana sighs. “You’re right,” he says, and Elder Price looks up, a forlorn expression on his face. Even Sadaka pauses in her ministrations to look up at the doctor, raising an eyebrow, wondering what exactly he’s saying. “I have seen many injuries, Elder Price, from many people. I have seen deglovings, fractured skulls, bones poking out of places they should not be.” Kevin winces again. Gotswana leans past Sadaka and pats the young man on his shoulder. “That does not make your injuries any less painful, you know.”

Sadaka’s smile grows as Kevin looks up to Gotswana in confusion, before he moves to exchange a glance with her, an _are you hearing this?_ sort of look. She merely raises an eyebrow, shrugs a shoulder, and tilts her head towards Gotswana in a subtle encouragement, a _why don’t you listen and find out?_ kind of look.

“I don’t quite follow, sir,” he replies hesitantly, and Sadaka rolls her eyes at his infuriating Mormon politeness.

Gotswana rolls his eyes too, exchanges a look with Sadaka (she’s loving the fact that she seems to be in on both of their exasperations - it makes her feel quite busy and important), and then points to his feet. “Just because the man next to you broke his foot once in the past, it does not make the toe you just stubbed any less painful. Pain is relative, Elder Price, and stubbed toes fucking hurt.”

Sadaka grins as a look of understanding passes over Elder Price’s face, just as she ties a knot in the bandage. “You are going to bruise like a peach, Elder,” she informs him cheerfully, before she pats his shoulder (gently, of course; he may have only cut his arm, but she’s sure the rest of his body aches a lot - he fell out of a tree, after all). “But we will not have to amputate today.”

Gotswana grins at her, and Kevin looks up, smile sheepish. “I’m sorry,” he tells them both. “I’m making a big fuss over nothing -”

“If you apologise again, Elder,” Gotswana interrupts him, folding his arms across his chest and glowering at Elder Price, “I will give you an injury to cry about.”

“Doesn’t that kind of go against what you just said?” Kevin asks, ever the pedant, but Sadaka and Gotswana both roll their eyes as Sadaka helps him hop off the table.

“You want to learn that pain is relative?” Gotswana asks, and Elder Price looks very uncertain for a moment. “I tell you what, white boy. You come to my practice and you help out for the next week. I will teach you about why you are foolish to write off suffering.”

As Elder Price follows Sadaka to the door of the hut, he nods. “Okay,” he says, still sounding a little unsure, but with a determined expression. “Okay. I’ll swap duties, and come spend some time here next week.”

“I look forward to it,” Gotswana tells him with a smile, and turns to clear some things up.

As they reach the door, Sadaka leans in conspiratorially, pushing herself onto tiptoes to whisper something to Elder Price.

“I have seen Mutumbo cry for less,” she tells him, a glittering smile on her face, and it only grows as she sees the way Kevin Price’s eyes soften a little, clearly reassured.

\---

True to his word, Elder Price swaps duties with the two elders who were supposed to be coming to help, and turns up on their doorstep on the Monday morning, pale and anxious-looking. “Okay,” he says to Sadaka as she opens the door to him, “I’m ready to learn.”

Sadaka smirks at him, then steps to the side to let him in. “You know you will have to listen to everything we tell you to do,” she tells him brightly. He nods. “Will that not be a challenge for you?”

“I _so_ can listen,” Kevin all but snaps at her, but gives her an apologetic smile after a moment.

Sadaka holds her hands up in the universal signal of surrender. “Whatever you say, white boy,” she tells him, her tone teasing, and he pulls a face at her. She likes this one.

To be completely fair to him, he _does_ listen to them, although he spends most of the first day with a horrified expression plain on his face every time he has to deal with a bodily fluid or see exposed skin that he doesn’t want to. Sadaka supposes it must be a shock to the system for a young boy from a conservative family. She hasn’t known him too long, but she’s willing to guess he hasn’t seen a lot of the world before.

She thinks he might faint as he helps her clean up the floor following a visit from a particularly poorly Middala (“Just a stomach bug!” Gotswana declares cheerfully, Kevin’s own stomach visibly churning), and Sadaka wonders if he’s regretting his decision. If he is, he’s keeping very quiet about it.

“You see, Elder Price,” Gotswana tells him as Sadaka gives Kimbay a hug and sends her on her way. She’s just brought in her youngest daughter, who has been complaining of a sore throat and headache for the past few days, and spent most of the session trying her best not to cry, though her lip was wobbling. “You have seen a wide range of problems today. Some of them are far more serious than others, but all of them are problems. Just because you have had a sore throat before, does not mean that the one you have now hurts any less.”

After insisting she walk him back up to the missionary hut, Sadaka hands him over to an amused looking Elder McKinley at the end of the day, who raises an eyebrow at her, clearly wanting her to fill him in on any gossip. Elder Price is white as a ghost from the day, and looks very tired, but he has a determined expression on his face.

“I’ll be back at nine tomorrow morning, then,” he tells her, and Sadaka raises her eyebrows. Behind him, she sees Elder McKinley do the same.

“You want another round?” she asks, and he nods.

“I learnt some stuff today,” he admits. “And some of it was downright gross, but, well, what can I say? I’m kind of interested.” He looks over his shoulder at McKinley, who looks back at Sadaka.

“If you can cope with Elder Price for a few more days, Sister?” he asks her, and his tone is light and teasing.

Sadaka grins. “We will take him again,” she tells him, and Kevin beams. “If only because he admitted he was learning. Do I get a prize for making him listen?”

“Hey,” Kevin whines reproachfully.

“That’s worth a medal of valour at least,” Elder McKinley tells Sadaka in a faux-serious tone. “But great, you can keep him for the week. That will save everyone else his whinging. We might finally get some work done.” He grins as Kevin pouts at him, and Sadaka salutes him.

\---

Admittedly, Elder Price does get better over the next week. By the Thursday, Sadaka barely has to correct the bandage he’s wrapping around Mutumbo’s arm, and he barely even complains now when they have to clean up the hut.

They have a lull in the afternoon for the first time that week, and Sadaka is just writing up a list of supplies for the Elders to pick up from Kampala when she notices Elder Price has gone the colour of curdled milk.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, looking to his arm in case it’s something to do with his injury from the previous week. It doesn’t seem to be, though; as far as she can see, that’s healing quite nicely. “Elder Price?”

Gotswana has gone out to visit Kalimba, and so it’s just them in the hut at the moment. Elder Price looks up to her, and the expression on his face makes Sadaka’s empathetic instincts kick in. She has helped sick people too long not to be compassionate, and she reaches out to take him by the shoulder and sit him down on the table.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, as he wipes at his face with his hands, concentrating on taking deep breaths.

“Sorry,” he says after a moment. “It’s just a thing that happens sometimes when things are overwhelming, and - ugh, I don’t know why I get like this.” He sounds frustrated and upset, and Sadaka frowns.

“Tell me how you are feeling,” she instructs, though her voice is soft.

Elder Price shrugs. “Sometimes I get quite anxious,” he admits. “I can feel my heart in my throat and my chest gets all tight and it’ll be over things that… well, that I don’t even know. I always have done, and I never know why. Sometimes, after I’ve been doing something overwhelming and then suddenly I stop, it catches up with me.” He gives a breathy laugh, and Sadaka tightens the hand she has on his shoulder. “It’s _stupid_ , really, when I have so much, and then the people here are suffering so much more than me, and I’m here, crying over _nothing._ ”

Sadaka’s frown deepens. “Oh, now,” she says, putting a finger under his chin and raising it so that he’s no longer looking into his lap, but rather at her. “There is nothing stupid about this.” She has conversations with Asmeret and with Mutumbo too, when they are stricken with worry and unaware why.

“But it _is,_ ” Kevin protests miserably, and he sniffs. “ _Look_ at me, Sadaka. I’m in perfect health. I am surrounded by people that love and support me. I am so privileged in _so_ many ways, and there are people so much less fortunate than I am, and -”

“I am going to stop you there, Elder,” Sadaka interrupts, placing one finger against his lips in an attempt to hush him. Elder Price’s eyes widen. “Have you not listened to us at all?”

“Something about stubbing toes,” Elder Price says with a sniffle.

“The doctor loves a metaphor,” Sadaka says fondly. “But what he means to say is that you cannot compare yourself to other people, Elder Price, because if you do, you will just suffer more.”

“But -”

“No buts, Elder.”

There’s colour returning to his cheeks the longer they sit there. Sadaka taps a tune against his knee with her fingers, grounding him.

“It’s so frustrating,” he says after a while, and she looks up, raising an eyebrow. “This has happened so many times before, and I’m _still_ not able to control it.”

Sadaka squeezes her fingers against his knee. “Remember, Elder,” she says gently. “Just because you have had a sore throat before, it does not mean the one you have now will hurt any less.”

Elder Price looks at her, _really_ looks at her, and Sadaka squares her shoulders slightly, feeling exposed, but then he smiles, sniffs and wipes his eyes, and Sadaka thinks he’s suddenly understood.

They share the lunch Elder Thomas packed him off with that morning, and swap stories as he calms down. Sadaka tries to tell him some gossip about Kalimba’s husband, but then she has to give a whole backstory, because Elder Price hasn’t been there as long as Elder McKinley and Elder Thomas, and also doesn’t seem to be as naturally attuned to gossip as some of the other white boys, so she ends up telling funny stories about growing up in the village. By the time Gotswana gets back, they’re both laughing as they share his food, Sadaka in the middle of an impression of a teenage Asmeret trying to pick a fight with one of Elder Price’s predecessors.

Gotswana raises an eyebrow in question. Sadaka grins at him, trying to think up an excuse, when Elder Price interrupts. “Sorry, Doctor,” he says, smiling. “Sadaka was just helping me.”

“Helping you?” Gotswana repeats.

Kevin nods. “I had a sore throat.”

\---

It’s the middle of a muggy August day a year and a half down the line when Kevin is forced to remember the lessons he learnt with Gotswana and Sadaka during his mission.

“So then,” Nabulungi says, her speech so impassioned that she moves her arm a little violently and slops lager all over their couch (Kevin notices the way she merely presses a sock-covered foot into the stain in an attempt to mop it up, and decides that he won’t snitch on her to Connor when he inevitably freaks out over it later), “this man just _decides_ that -” Her story is cut short when they hear a yelp and a string of swear words from down the hall that would have made pre-missionary Kevin keel over in horror.

Nabulungi and Kevin merely look at each other for a second, before Kevin calls out, “Con? Arnold? You good?” He adjusts his grip on his lager, and watches Nabulungi follow suit.

There’s silence for a moment, and then Arnold’s voice comes through. “Kev? You got a sec?”

When Kevin and Nabulungi make their way out into the hall where Connor and Arnold have been trying to fix the air-conditioning (which Kevin _knew_ they shouldn’t - he’d tried to convince Connor to call a professional, but Connor’s reply to that had been a very rude way of asking Kevin if he intended to pay for it himself that he’s just _sure_ he learnt from either Kalimba or Asmeret) for the past half hour. Arnold is hovering at the bottom of a step-ladder, and Connor is perched on top of it, looking equally as sheepish.

“Do you know where I keep the first aid kit?” Connor asks after a moment, and Kevin rolls his eyes as he notices Connor clutching at his hand.

So ten minutes later, after Nabulungi has chewed Connor out suitably for thinking he and Arnold are capable of sorting something like this when “you can’t even make mugoyo without burning the shit out of it” (Connor’s offended by that one), Kevin is bandaging up Connor’s hand in the tiny cramped bathroom. Connor tries explaining how to do it at first once he’s disinfected it, but Kevin just brushes him off, demonstrating that he knows perfectly well how to clean up a minor cut.

“Where’d you learn that?” Connor asks after a moment, his expression not giving much away bar a slight curiosity. “I had you pegged as being super squeamish. You hate bloody scenes in movies.”

“I was,” Kevin tells him, and Connor raises an eyebrow. “And I do. Bloody scenes in movies are gross. But I know how to bandage up an arm, you know. I did help out at Gotswana’s a fair few times, thank you very much.” He pauses wrapping the bandage when he looks up at Connor, who is pouting. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s so dumb,” Connor shrugs. “I was about to say that this really stings, but then you mentioned Gotswana, and. I mean, it’s like, barely even a scratch.” He sighs, and Kevin is surprised to hear his voice sound so shaky. Connor is normally all carefully constructed composure.  

“Must have been a bit of a shock,” he says to Connor, who shrugs again.

“It’s literally just a scratch,” Connor mumbles after a moment. Kevin looks up at him again, and squeezes his knee as he notices how thick his voice sounds. “Ugh, I don’t know why I’m being such a baby. It’s not like anything we saw in Uganda.” He sniffs, and before Kevin can say anything else, he clears his throat. “Learn anything else in Uganda, then?”

Kevin grins. “Lots of metaphors, really,” he says lightly. Connor raises an eyebrow. “Mostly, I learnt that you shouldn’t compare yourself to others.”

Connor looks disbelieving. “You learnt that in a doctor’s surgery?” When he says it like that, Kevin hears it, and he merely pulls a face.

“Shut up, McKinley, I did too learn it in a doctor’s surgery,” he says, tying the bandage off neatly. “He said that just because the guy next to you broke his toe, doesn’t mean that the toe you stubbed will hurt any less.”

“I imagine it would still hurt less than a broken toe.”

Kevin looks up at Connor with a glare, annoyed that he’s chosen today to become a pedant. He’s had a bit of a shock, though, Kevin concedes, and instead pulls him into a tight hug. Connor’s stiff against him for a moment, but eventually does relent, giving him a soft smile when Kevin lets go. “Thanks,” he mumbles.

Kevin grins as he leads him back into the living room. “Did Sadaka ever tell you the story of sixteen-year-old Asmeret tearing apart some poor Mormon missionaries?”

“I know that story well,” Nabulungi’s voice interrupts, and she launches into the tale, Kevin prompting her as she goes. As he picks up his lager once again, perching on the edge of the beanbag Connor’s thrown himself on top of, Kevin is pleased to see that both the redhead and his best friend are looking considerably less miserable, to the extent that they both start offering up funny stories they remember from Uganda, Arnold cackling as Nabulungi tells them about Chris and James learning Swahili.

Kevin’s not surprised; reminiscing has always been his sore throat remedy.

He learnt that one from Sadaka.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The whole idea of "a sore throat doesn't become less sore just because you've felt it before" comes from Matt Haig's _Notes on a Nervous Planet_ , which is an excellent book if you're interested in that kind of thing!


	4. Rain Clouds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You have a lot of things to learn,” Mafala agrees. Elder McKinley shoots him a grateful smile. “More things to learn than to teach, in fact. Like noticing rain clouds. Dalili ya mvua ni mawingu.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! I am so sorry for the super long wait! I've rewritten this chapter 3 times and forced the lovely @youweretheocean to beta it for me (thank you - you are an absolute star!!), but this is the longest chapter yet! I hope it's all okay, and that you all have a lovely day!

The rainy season in Uganda means that storms are no laughing matter. Mafala is just chatting with Kalimba and Asmeret, rocking one of Asmeret’s children on his hip as they discuss whether the mud huts will need reinforcing to withstand an onslaught of bad weather, when there is a sudden breeze, and the three of them look up, all of them knowing. There’s a storm coming. 

“You can stay and take shelter here, Mafala,” Kalimba offers, despite the fact they are outside Asmeret’s house. Asmeret doesn’t look particularly fazed by this, clearly used to Kalimba speaking for her, and Mafala grins at her. He loves his villagers. 

“I should head back,” he tells them, hoisting Asmeret’s daughter up and tickling her slightly. Nagesa cackles, and then makes grabby hands to her mother, who takes her back from Mafala’s grip, pulling a face at her. Mafala remembers how his wife had used to do that for his own daughter. “Nabulungi does not like storms so much.” Neither does Mafala, particularly. Nabulungi’s mother had loved them; she used to walk about in them and scare Mafala half to death. 

(Of course, when she stops walking about in them, that scares Mafala more. He doesn’t think about that, though, now, as he stares up at the clouds.)

“You walk fast, now, Mafala,” Kalimba commands him with a frown, as Asmeret clucks her tongue at him. She doesn’t argue with his desire to go, just rolls her eyes and asks him if he’s sure he doesn’t want to eat with her family. Mafala thanks her and takes his leave. 

As he’s strolling back, clouds growing increasingly ominous, Mafala frowns as he sees the lights off in the Mission Hut. It’s on the outskirts of the village, but normally it twinkles from its position on the hill when any of the white boys are in. The darkness implies that they’re out. Mafala looks at the impending rainstorm and shrugs. They must have seen it, and if they’re with any of the villagers, they surely will have told them to go and take shelter. He doesn’t think too much of it, and carries on his journey. 

When he arrives back to his hut, Mafala hears frantic voices on the other side of the door. When he opens it, he is greeted by a hug from Nabulungi that surely isn’t merited by a half an hour trip to talk to Kalimba. 

“Baba!” she greets with far too much enthusiasm, and it’s only when she pulls away that he notices a sheepish-looking Elder Cunningham over her shoulder, frantically straightening his tie and tucking his shirt back into his trousers.  _ Ah.  _

“Hey, Mafala, buddy!” Arnold greets Mafala, who raises an eyebrow at him. It’s not that he actually really does care all that much; Arnold Cunningham is a nice boy, and a prophet no less. That doesn’t mean it’s any less fun to watch him squirm. “I was just, er, um -”

“He was helping me to understand a passage in the Book,” Nabulungi says hastily, when Arnold’s stumbling towards fabricating a lie grows too much to deal with. Mafala isn’t going to push it. He was younger than Arnold and Nabulungi when he started out with his wife. 

“Yeah, the Book!” Arnold says, and then laughs that horrible shrill laugh that goes straight through Mafala. If anything, that is probably Arnold Cunningham’s greatest flaw in the eyes of Mafala. But then again, the Book teaches that nobody is perfect. Not even Prophet Cunningham escapes that particular truth, and he’s a pathological liar. “Well, I should probably, um, I should probably get going now, because, er, because um, because you know how Elder McKinley is if we’re late for dinner!” He looks pleased with himself for that one. 

He’s about to leave when Mafala steps in front of the door to block his exit.

“You will be stuck here a while, boy,” he tells Arnold, and he tries not to grin at the mildly horrified expression that passes over Arnold’s face. “There is a storm coming.” 

“I can deal with a little rain,” Arnold tries to say, but Mafala shakes his head. 

“There will be nothing little about this rain, Prophet. You will stay and eat with us.” And then, because he’s feeling a little like embarrassing Arnold some more, he adds, “You could teach me the passage from the Book you have taken so much time to run through with Nabulungi.”

The effect is instant. It’s so worth it to see the kid turn the colour of the coral tree that grows up near the lake. 

—- 

The rain starts coming down thick and fast not too long after. Nabulungi makes posho for the three of them, and they’re just about to sit down to eat when there’s a crack of thunder that has Arnold jumping a mile, before he grins. 

“Do you guys like lightning?” he asks them eagerly. Mafala and his daughter look at each other.  

“I  _ love  _ lightning,” Arnold continues, not giving them a chance to answer. Mafala can see the glint in his eye that means he’s about to launch off into one of his rambling tangents, and wonders for a moment what he has done wrong in his life to merit him being trapped in a mud hut with Arnold Cunningham. “I think it looks  _ awesome _ . Also, it reminds me like, a whole bunch of things like Darth Sidious. Do you wanna watch it with me?” 

Mafala isn’t sure he wants to, but Nabulungi is making doe eyes at Arnold, and he decides he will humour him as he comes to peer out of the small window next to him. He quickly makes a wish to whoever is out there that the roof of his hut is reinforced enough that the rain won’t end up cascading inside.

They can’t see any lightning, only torrential rain, but for the first time ever, Mafala notices something different about the storms. Perhaps it is having an overexcited American jabbering away next to him about all sorts of nonsense Mafala doesn’t quite understand, but he feels like he sees a new side to the weather, a beauty he’s never noticed before.

Nabulungi is also staring at the rain with an expression Mafala has never seen grace her face before. “It is quite beautiful, isn’t it?” she says, more to her father than to her boyfriend. Mafala nods. “I can see what Mama saw in it,” she continues, her voice a whisper.

Mafala is about to put his arm around her to comfort her when he notices something odd. He frowns a little as a weird speck on the horizon begins to blur into shape, and then he’s rolling his eyes and reaching for the door. 

“Eh! Idiot boys! Get in here now!” he shouts, as Elder McKinley and Elder Price stumble into view. He’d thought it was odd seeing those mission hut lights off. He wonders if the others are out there too. 

Next to him, Arnold visibly lights up. “Hey best friend!” he calls to Kevin as Mafala grabs the two by the collars of their shirts and yanks them roughly into the shelter. Both of them look frozen solid. Elder McKinley’s lips look sort of blue. 

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” Mafala asks them, as Nabulungi goes to grab a blanket to drape around their shoulders. “You know this is real rain, yes? Cold rain. Dangerous rain. You do not wander in this rain.” He softens slightly as he realises he can barely hear himself over Elder Price’s teeth chattering, and pushes his unfinished posho over for them to split between them. “I will make some tea,” he tells them, stoking the fire. 

He’s about to boil some water when there’s a knock (or rather a frantic pounding) at the door, and when he opens it, he finds himself rolling his eyes so hard he thinks he gives himself a headache as he finds a soggy Elder Church and Elder Thomas on the other side. “Get inside,” he tells them forcefully before Elder Thomas can pry apart his chattering teeth to beg him for shelter. 

“Where are the rest of you?” he asks Elder McKinley after a moment, as he begins to distribute hot tea between them. 

“I think Davis was helping Gotswana,” Elder Price answers for his friend, after Elder McKinley struggles to form a sentence from his teeth clattering together. If Mafala didn’t think they were all idiots, he would probably feel a bit sorry for them. It’s not that the temperature out is cold, but that once the rain makes you wet, you get cold very quickly.

“Elder Michaels and Elder Neeley were about to start a Swahili lesson with Kimbay when we left,” supplies Elder Church helpfully in addition. “We left because we wanted to beat the weather.” 

Mafala raises an eyebrow. “It appears that you did not do a good job of that,” he tells Elder Church in a flat tone, but he feels largely more relieved than he did a moment ago. There is no way Gotswana and Kimbay will have let some foolish teenagers wander out into a storm. 

“The weather’s awful, isn’t it?” Elder Thomas chirps, as if trying to make conversation, before he turns a beetroot colour as five pairs of eyes turn to look at him. “I mean,” he stammers, searching for something to say, “I mean, it doesn’t rain like that back home.” 

“Welcome to Uganda,” Mafala replies, a glittering smile on his face. “You will grow used to it soon enough, Elder Thomas. As long as you don’t go running around in it, that is.” He pats Elder Church on the shoulder and exchanges a look with his daughter.

\---

The rain doesn’t let off for another few hours, so an idle chatter breaks out across the hut. Mafala talks with Elder Church and Elder Thomas in Swahili. They’ve come on a long way from when they first tried to proselytise to Mafala and Nabulungi, and Mafala has to say that he’s impressed. He notices the proud smile on his daughter’s face, and thinks that she must be impressed too. 

He’s just in the middle of helping Elder Thomas struggle through an anecdote about his grandmother back in Utah when he hears annoyed voices somewhere behind him. Mafala stops and looks over his shoulder, trying to figure out who has interrupted them. Then he hears a “with respect, Elder Cunningham” and a “no, buddy, I don’t need respect, and I told you to call me Arnold, remember?”, and Mafala’s rolling his eyes. Of  _ course  _ it’s Arnold Cunningham.

Mafala turns in his seat to see the hushed arguing, and notices Arnold with Elder McKinley, who looks rather irritated, and not at all the composed young man he has known over the past four months. Elder Price seems to be attempting to shuffle away from Elder McKinley, but is trapped by the blanket Nabulungi put around them earlier.

“Everything okay, Elders?” Mafala asks, wondering what exactly he has wandered in on.

“Oh, Elder Hatimbi,” Connor greets, and he smiles brightly at him, which has Mafala raising a confused eyebrow. He’s sure the pair were just fighting. “Sorry, did we disturb you? I’m very sorry about that.” 

“Hey, Mafala!” By contrast, Arnold’s cheer is genuine (of  _ course  _ it is) and he doesn’t seem to care about disturbing his conversation, and Mafala can’t help but smile and roll his eyes at their prophet. He may be a prophet, but he is a bumbling idiot, in Mafala’s opinion. It makes him no less fond. “Mafala, buddy, do you think you could help us settle something?” 

“Elder Hatimbi is probably very busy talking with Elder Church and Elder Thomas, Elder Cunningham,” Elder McKinley begins, clearly not wanting to involve Mafala in whatever dispute it is that they’re having. Mafala is staring at him in bemusement. The amount of times he’s used the word  _ elder  _ seems to make it lose its meaning. “Don’t worry, Elder Hatimbi. I know you’re busy.” 

Mafala instead raises an eyebrow. “I am not busy at all,” he tells him, and he smirks as Elder McKinley looks vaguely horrified. “What is the problem, Arnold?” 

Arnold beams at him. “Great, buddy! Here, so, Connor -” 

“Elder McKinley,” mutters Connor.

“- thinks that we’ve been having too much fun lately and we need to go back to being  _ boring. _ ” 

“No, no, that is  _ not  _ what I’m saying, Elder,” Connor interrupts, giving Arnold a look that Mafala thinks, if it had the potential to kill, would evaporate Elder Cunningham on the spot. Elder Church and Elder Thomas behind him have stopped talking completely and are watching intently. Elder Price once again tries to shuffle away. “I just think that -” 

“I get that the future is frightening, and that’s okay!” Arnold interrupts him. Mafala frowns as Elder McKinley splutters, wondering what exactly the point Arnold is trying to make. “It’s okay that you’re scared, buddy! You just gotta cut loose, you know.  _ Live  _ a little!” 

“I am  _ not  _ scared,” Elder McKinley replies hotly, and yanks at the blanket when Kevin tries to scoot away once again. “Frankly, Elder, I think that we need to start working harder, you know? We’re here for a purpose.” 

“And  _ I  _ think there’s nothing wrong with having a little fun every once in a while. Kevin agrees with me, don’t you, buddy?”

Kevin looks like he would rather be anywhere but here. He looks up at Mafala with desperate eyes, and Mafala decides to step in and save him.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Mafala asks, because he feels like he’s missed a whole part of this argument, and it gives him a little kick to see them flinch at profanity. 

Elder McKinley takes this as an opportunity to get his side of the story in before Elder Cunningham can. “Elder Cunningham would be far happier if we were to just spend our days larking about in the sunshine discussing Star Wars and not doing anything proactive at all.”

“I think we would all prefer to be doing that, Elder McKinley,” Mafala replies, not entirely sure what this Star Wars thing he speaks of is, but deciding that the idea of ‘larking about in the sun’ sounds incredibly appealing. 

“Yes, we would,” Elder McKinley admits. “But that’s not… we have a job to do. We have to work to help our community, and to teach and to learn.”

“You have a lot of things to learn,” Mafala agrees. Elder McKinley shoots him a grateful smile. “More things to learn than to teach, in fact. Like noticing rain clouds.  _ Dalili ya mvua ni mawingu _ .” 

Both Elder McKinley and Elder Cunningham look at him blankly. Mafala sighs. “It is a saying,” he tells them, “in Swahili. It means that clouds come before rain.” 

“Oh.” Neither of them look as if they understand the relevance of this. Perhaps it doesn’t translate literally.

Mafala sighs again. “It means that there are signs, you know. Things that lead up to an event.” 

“No smoke without fire?” Kevin supplies helpfully from where he is sat huddled near Elder McKinley.  

Mafala smiles at him. “Yes,” he replies. “Maybe that. There is no smoke without fire. There is no rain without clouds. There are precursors, things that explain why something happens. You miss the literal clouds; how will you notice metaphorical ones?” 

“We didn’t miss the clouds, Elder Hatimbi,” Elder McKinley says hastily, shifting awkwardly as if trying to dissipate the tension. He sounds mildly embarrassed. 

“Oh, so you saw the clouds, and decided to ignore them anyway,” Mafala replies, rolling his eyes. “That is even more stupid.” 

Elder McKinley turns as red as his hair, seemingly searching for an excuse, before he seems to decide that his knees suddenly seem incredibly interesting where they’re knocking together against Kevin’s. After a moment, he swallows. “I just think, with the matter at hand, that we really should be focussing more on our work. We have an opportunity to help and learn, and we shouldn’t waste it.” 

Mafala has to say, he thinks that’s fair enough. He raises an eyebrow and nods, before looking over to Arnold, wondering what he’ll have to say to it. He expects to see him floundering, or flustered.

Instead, Elder Cunningham just smiles knowingly. This must be really grating on Elder McKinley, Mafala thinks. “ _ Yeah _ ,” he says, dragging out the word, “but that doesn’t mean we have to have a stick up our butts the whole time. You know, in the new Star Trek movies, you know, the ones with the alternate timeline, Spock becomes like, a whole bunch more likeable once he realises it’s okay to cut loose and, y’know,  _ let your feelings out _ .” 

Elder McKinley turns a furious shade of red, and Mafala doesn't miss how he shuffles away from Elder Price very suddenly. Elder Price looks perplexed, but Elder McKinley pays him no heed. “I  _ hardly _ think that now is the time -” he begins to protest, but his voice squeaks away and now  _ he  _ looks up at Mafala in desperation. 

Mafala isn’t quite sure what’s going on, but he gets that feeling again, the feeling that he only knows half of the story. He is too used to dealing with the fall out of Asmeret’s arguments to assume that either one of them is one hundred percent correct. Sure, Asmeret is the common denominator with most village disputes, but Mafala has to admit, while her temper is short and firey, she doesn’t normally kick off unless she has even ten percent of a reason to. One of his fondest memories is of her taking on an Elder in her teenage years. 

“I do not know what this Star Trekking business is about,” Mafala admits, and he pushes on so that Arnold can’t interrupt him to explain, “but I know that there is no point in working yourself to the bone. It is important to relax every once in a while, and to enjoy what you have.” 

“With respect, Sir,” Elder McKinley says, clearing his throat and trying his best to smile despite the fact he looks a little worked up, “while I appreciate that it is important to take a moment to appreciate what you have, I think it’s also important for Elder Cunningham to remember that we aren’t just here on vacation, and that we have a job to do.” 

“A job which we can’t do right now,” Elder Cunningham replies smartly, gesturing towards the little window emphatically. Mafala wonders just how gleeful he is inside to have the rainstorm to illustrate the point he’s trying to make.  

“No, but it’s a good idea to be prepared,” Elder McKinley says. Mafala thinks it is physically straining the redhead to keep his voice level and collected. “And I’d rather be planning all the  _ boring  _ things than the fun things, Elder.” 

Mafala thinks Connor McKinley sounds practical, father-like. He also sounds about twenty years older than he is. Meanwhile, Arnold, who, while wise in all the unconventional senses of the word, blows a raspberry at the word ‘boring’. The rain is still pouring, and, knowing he’s going to be stuck with them for at least a while longer, Mafala is suddenly fighting the very strong urge he has to knock their heads together. 

He decides to fold his arms across his chest like he used to when Nabulungi was little, and clears his throat to draw their attention once again. Both of them look up, and Mafala almost smiles at the way their eyes widen as if he is about to tell them off. He remembers when Nabulungi used to give her best innocent expression, ready to negotiate her way out of whatever trouble she was in through cuteness. 

However, this time, Mafala thinks he’s right. “You can see each other’s rain clouds,” he tells them smartly. They both look a little confused for a moment, but neither of them dare to argue. “You,” he says, pointing to Elder McKinley, “are scared that if you do not put your heads down and work, you will become complacent, or lazy. Right?” 

Elder McKinley nods slowly. “We’ve got an opportunity,” he repeats, “and we shouldn’t… we shouldn’t waste it. And I worry that if we don’t work hard enough, we will.” 

Arnold considers it, and Mafala feels fond. “That’s fair, buddy,” he says softly. “I can see how it would look that way.” 

“Whereas  _ you _ ,” he says, pointing to Arnold, who grins at him (and Mafala would be lying if he said he didn’t end up smiling back), “can see him running himself into the ground. Yes?” 

“ _ Exactly _ ,” Arnold says, and Elder McKinley looks confused. “Honestly, Connor, buddy, I’m worried if you don’t relax a bit, you’ll give yourself a heart attack, and that just wouldn’t be so awesome.” 

“I guess I’ve been a little tired,” Elder McKinley says after a moment. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we could, like, I don’t know. Compromise.” 

“Work hard, play hard,” Elder Price says, because apparently he’s a fountain of proverbs today. He turns a little pink as three sets of eyes turn on him, and pulls the blanket away from his friend and tighter around his own shoulders, as if trying to shield himself a little. 

Mafala recognises himself a lot in these teenage boys. He remembers the first year after the death of his wife, working so hard to try and feed and clothe his daughter that he forgot to take care of himself. He remembers how hollow he had felt, until one day Nabulungi had taken his hand in hers during a storm, squeezing it.

He remembers how his wife had used to love storms. He remembers how she danced in the rain. He remembers how he remembered, how Nabulungi, the small light in his life, reminded him that life had joys, that it was important to remember to enjoy yourself.

(They danced in the rain that night. Not for long - neither of them like storms - they’re  _ dangerous  _ after all. Just long enough to remember his wife, her mother, and all of the joy she had brought in her life, to forget the rain clouds they’d pretended not to notice in the months before her death, like how she’d stopped dancing altogether.) 

“It is importance to find a balance,” he tells them both. “Work hard, play hard, you said, Elder Price?” Elder Price nods. Mafala grins. “I like that. Work hard, play hard. 

“But you boys must keep caring for each other,” he adds, because they’re obviously terrible at it. “Look for rain clouds, because if you do not, you will both drown.” He softens slightly. “Drink your tea. Elder McKinley, you still look freezing.” 

He receives smiles from them, and pats both Elder Price and Elder McKinley on the shoulder, reaching to ruffle Arnold’s hair, before he goes to rejoin his daughter, who rests her head against his shoulder, obviously pleased he’s being so friendly with Elder Cunningham.

He’d be an idiot to deny that he was fond of that bumbling buffoon. 

“Here, Elders,” he says to Elder Thomas and Elder Church, who’ve carried on their Swahili lesson in his absence, “I have an expression to teach you.” 

Nabulungi groans, obviously embarrassed by his proverbs, but Elder Thomas and Elder Church lap it up eagerly.

He hopes they all start looking for rain clouds.

\---

Arnold is cooking dinner (pasta surprise! The surprise is because it comes out different every time) when Nabulungi passes him the phone.

“Hello?” he says cheerfully as he stirs the sauce in the frying pan, tasting a spoonful. He doesn’t remember adding paprika, but he must have at some point. 

“ _ Hello, Arnold. _ ” 

Arnold is grinning as he recognises his future father-in-law’s voice. “Hey, Mafala, buddy!” he greets brightly. “What’s going on over there? You in the Mission Hut?” The Elders have left all the furnishings in the abandoned Mission Hut, and between Kevin, Arnold and Connor, they’re still paying the phone company to keep the connection open so that Nabulungi is able to keep in contact with her father even after she makes the move to the States, leaving behind everything she’s ever known. It’s a small price to pay for his fiancée’s happiness, and it means he gets to ramble to Mafala about whatever he’s interested in this week.

“ _ Yes, of course I am. _ ” Arnold hears Mafala chuckling on the other end of the phone, before this sparks a coughing fit. Arnold winces.

“You okay, friend?” 

“ _ Absolutely fine, _ ” Mafala replies, and then hastily adds, “ _ Tell me about your day. Are you looking after my daughter? _ ” 

“I’m cooking her dinner as we speak,” Arnold tells him, and Mafala makes a pleased noise. “Pasta surprise!” 

“ _ That sounds awful _ ,” Mafala tells him, and his voice is wheezy. He sounds a like he’s suffering, and it makes Arnold’s chest tight. 

“Mafala -” he tries, because he can’t  _ not  _ say anything - that’d be turning it off, wouldn’t it? - but Mafala’s not having it.

“ _ Please, _ ” Mafala interrupts, and Arnold bites his lip. “ _ Tell me some more about your day, and I will tell you about Kalimba and Asmeret’s latest quarrel. _ ” 

That sounds like something Connor and Kevin would be more interested in, but Arnold can’t deny that he misses the antics of Kalimba and Asmeret. They have a friendship as odd and as strong as his and Kevin’s. Arnold grins as he replies, “Guess we’re gonna be talking a long time then buddy!” and launches into a long description of a film he’s watched that day. 

He feels like he’s humouring Mafala, but then again, how many times has Mafala humoured him? The first time he  _ spoke  _ to Mafala, he had treated him with nothing but kindness, had taught him a new phrase (even if Arnold and Kevin had been horrified, he  _ had  _ tried to help them), had given them guidance on a not-so-awesome day. He owes Mafala Hatimbi more than he’s worth, when he thinks about it. So Arnold carries on, jabbering away, pausing only to taste pasta or force his fiancée to take a mouthful, or, on one occasion, to gasp for breath. (Even in a situation like this, Arnold finds it easy to get carried away with himself. He can’t help it - the film was frickin’  _ awesome. _ And at least Mafala’s  _ pretending  _ to be interested, which is more than he can say for his best friend. Kevin hung up on him when he FaceTimed him earlier about it.)

“The wedding’s in two months, buddy,” he says after a while, once Naba has left the room (she also had a less than enthusiastic response to him rambling when she picked him up from the cinema earlier, turning up the radio to try and drown him out), and his heart is fluttering in his chest. “You think you can fly out? Mom and Dad have said they would pay for your ticket if you wanted.” Okay, maybe they haven’t exactly, but Arnold’s  _ sure  _ they will, if he asks them. After all, they love Nabulungi, right? He wonders if he could convince them to pay for Kevin to come out too, and then maybe by extension Connor, and maybe they’d want to come too, and - 

“ _ We will see, Prophet, _ ” Mafala replies, and there’s an uneasy edge to his voice, and Arnold blinks. “ _ Two months is a long time. _ ” He pauses. “ _ Perhaps you will have poisoned Nabulungi with your pasta surprise. _ ” He chuckles wheezily, and Arnold laughs shrilly like he always does when he’s nervous. He can’t help it. 

“Hey, maybe we could get out there before then,” he says, and he doesn’t miss the hopeful breath on the other end of the line. “For real, buddy, I’ve got vacation to use, and I bet Naba would love to go back, and I’m sure… I’m sure my mom and dad would help us out. It’d be great to see you. You know,” he adds hastily, “sooner rather than later.” 

Mafala chuckles again. “ _That would be wonderful, Elder._ ” He pauses. “ _I must go. I think it will rain._ _Look after my daughter, Cunningham._ ” 

“Oh please,” Arnold says, and he gives a nervous laugh again, “ _ she  _ looks after  _ me. _ ” 

Mafala cackles, and then Arnold hears him yawn. He sounds exhausted, his words slurring slightly. It twists Arnold’s stomach slightly. “ _ I would expect nothing less. _ ” 

“We’ll see you soon?” It comes out more as a question than a statement, but Arnold feels a tickle of hope somewhere in his lungs.

“ _ I am sure, _ ” Mafala says, not sounding certain at all. Arnold tries to focus on not letting the hopeful feeling being snuffed out. They  _ will  _ see him again. Arnold tries to make it a resolute vow. 

When he hangs up, Arnold stands at the stove for a while, heart hammering in his chest, before he remembers he’s burning the pasta surprise. It’s Nabulungi coming to rest her head on his shoulder that makes him remember, and he pulls her into an incredibly tight hug. 

“Hey,” he says into her hair as she strokes her hands up and down his back, “you wanna get married in Kitguli? Like, have another ceremony out there, maybe?” Nabulungi pulls back and looks at him with wide eyes. Arnold continues, “We could ask Connor if he could maybe help us sort out all the admin stuff, you know, emails and stuff, booking time off with bosses in a schmoozy way, that stuff he’s really good at. He loves organising, right? And, and then everyone could be at our wedding. Sure, we can have a ceremony here too, but maybe we could just change it to a, to a blessing, because I mean, everyone I want to be there is in Kitguli, and I don’t really care if it like, upsets Great-Aunt Enid or whatever -” 

He’s cut off as Nabulungi throws her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly again, before kissing him passionately. “You are the best fiancé,” she tells him in earnest. “I cannot wait to tell Baba!” She takes her phone back from him, presumably to text Connor to ask for admin advice, and then wanders from the room.

Arnold smiles, but his heart won’t stop hammering in his chest.

He’s spotted rain clouds this time. Mafala has taught him how.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm really sorry for making it a bit sombre. If you want to chat to me, my musical theatre tumblr is @kimbayskafe!


	5. Heat Stroke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“All of you boys are so helpful, and that is very sweet, and very good.” He smiles. “You just have to remember that you cannot help other people if you do not help yourself first. What use are you helping a dehydrated Elder Church if you are dehydrated yourself?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! Thanks so much for your support, guys, I'm so glad that you've been able to relate in some situations or that you've enjoyed some of the chapters! It makes my day to hear from you all, so thank you so much! 
> 
> I'm sorry this took me such a long time to update, but here is the fifth time! Next time should be a plus one situation.
> 
> Thanks again guys, and I hope you all have a lovely weekend!
> 
> A quick warning that there is a (non-graphic) case of vomiting in the chapter!

The schoolhouse they’ve been constructing for the past few weeks is beginning to take better and better shape, and Ghali is proud to say that that is with no small effort on his part. They’ve been working solidly all day with the blaring Ugandan sun beating down on their backs. Whenever he feels hot, he looks up at the poor white boys suffering in the heat with their ridiculous ties, looking almost reflective as they try and loosen their shirts and turn pink in the cheeks.

The sun is unrelenting, but Ghali can just about manage it when he looks up and sees that the building looks like less of a skeleton and more of a shell than it had this morning. Sure, the roof isn’t filled in yet, and the gaps that are going to be windows certainly more resemble doors, but Ghali is impressed with their handiwork. The Mormon boys have kept to their word; when they announced this project, the villagers had been wary, well aware of the fact that they might leave a patch of ground completely destroyed with an abandoned frame for Kitguli to try and make less of a mess of, but all of them have pitched in, trying their best to help create a meeting place.

It was meant to be a Church at first, but then one of the boys, Elder McKinley, probably (Ghali likes him - he is smiley and sensible, and Ghali likes to think that he too is smiley and sensible), pointed out that there was more of a need of a place to convene, to teach in, to cook in, to gather in. It’s a meeting place, really, though there is a lot of dispute over what it will function as most. Kalimba says that it would be a good place to hold community cooking sessions. Gotswana insists it will be a great surgery. Kimbay has been referring to it as her schoolhouse, and Ghali is inclined to agree with whatever Kimbay says. (Kimbay is also sensible. She is less smiley than Ghali, but smiley enough. When Ghali’s mother died, Kimbay took himself and his younger brother under her wing, and he is very protective over her now.)

So the schoolhouse, as Kimbay has deemed it, is well underway, and Ghali gives it one last look of glowing admiration when Elder Thomas stumbles into his side, almost taking them both out.

“Are you alright, Elder Poptarts?” Ghali asks, reaching out to steady him, and as he pushes Elder Thomas back upright, he notices that he looks very pale and clammy. He likes Elder Thomas. He’s quite a little guy, really, but he is also very fierce in all of his emotions, and he reminds Ghali a little bit of Kimbay in that he is also relentlessly protective over certain people, Elder McKinley and Nabulungi being two of them.

Elder Thomas nods. “Sorry,” he mumbles, pinching his index finger and thumb against the bridge of his nose and blinking hard. “I just lost my balance a little bit there!”

Ghali raises an eyebrow, but pats Elder Thomas on the shoulder and vows mentally to keep an eye on him as he goes to help Nabulungi with a stack of material that is bigger than her and teetering precariously in her arms.

“It is coming along just fine, isn’t it?” Kimbay says somewhere behind the stack, and both Ghali and Nabulungi make a noise of approval. He hears her sigh happily. “This will be a good place to teach and learn, I think. It will be nice. Elder Neeley and Elder Michaels are picking up school resources from Kampala at the weekend too, and Elder Davis has asked his parents to send over his old school books. I do not know how useful they will be,” she adds in a lower, almost conspiratorial voice to Nabulungi and Ghali, “but I think that it is good to have the option.”

They pop down the stack and begin to distribute materials to the relevant people, Kimbay hovering next to Ghali and whispering about the design she has planned in her head. Ghali grins as he takes a sip of the water bottle she hands him; Kimbay is involving him a lot in her planning, intending for him to become a teacher too. (He knows she’s planning for him to become her successor, but he doesn’t like to think about that, likes to think about Kimbay as some kind of immortal being instead, a bit like Prophet Cunningham, or Moroni.)

Kimbay is mid-sentence about potentially building desks when she stops, a frown creasing between her eyebrows. “Nabulungi’s difficult boy is wobbling,” she says by way of explanation when Ghali raises a questioning eyebrow at her, and Ghali turns to see Elder Thomas staggering woozily across the shell of the hut like a baby impala trying to find its feet.

“Oh.” Ghali rushes towards him, throwing an arm out to steady him and steering him towards a seat. “You said you were fine,” he says in a slightly accusatory tone.

Elder Thomas gives a feeble groan in reply as the back of his legs hit the chair and he collapses into the frame. He is very pale and sweaty, and Ghali sighs heavily as Nabulungi heads off to go and find Gotswana.

Gotswana sighs heavily when he sees him. “How much have you drank today, boy?” he asks, and Elder Thomas looks sheepish.

“I gave my water to Elder Church,” he admits, and Gotswana rolls his eyes. “He was thirstier than I was!” Elder Thomas adds miserably. “I didn’t want him to get heatstroke.”

“That does not mean you do not need to drink either,” Gotswana replies, clearly trying his best not to sound exasperated, wetting a cloth with some of his water bottle and pressing it against Elder Thomas’s face to try and cool him down. He looks up at Ghali and Nabulungi. “Give him long slow sips of water,” he instructs them. “I’m off to find the leader. Let us hope that he has not sacrificed his health in a gesture of goodwill.”

“He will have,” the three of them reply in unison, and Gotswana rolls his eyes as he rushes off, raising his hands to the sky and muttering to himself as he travels over to where Elder McKinley is bickering with Elder Price.

“How are you feeling now, Poptarts?” Ghali asks in his best sympathetic tone, patting Elder Thomas on the shoulder. Elder Thomas gives him a feeble thumbs up, and Ghali grins, passing him the water bottle and forcing him to take another sip as Gotswana has instructed him to do.

“You look sad, boy,” Kalimba tells Elder Thomas as she sashays over with Asmeret. Elder Thomas grumbles in response. Kalimba looks up at Ghali, raising an eyebrow.

“Sunstroke,” Ghali stage whispers.

“It is _not_ sunstroke,” Elder Thomas snaps, and Ghali grins, glad that he is at least aware enough that he is willing to argue. “I’m just a bit dehydrated.”

“Oh, that is a horrible feeling,” Asmeret says, and all of their heads snap up to look at her (Elder Thomas’s perhaps doesn’t snap up, owing to the fact that his neck is probably quite stiff, but he does look at her). “What?” she asks defensively. “I have been dehydrated before. It is no laughing matter.” She shudders and takes a sip of her water. “I feel for you, white boy.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Elder Thomas says, and he sounds genuinely touched.

“That is the nicest thing she has ever said to anyone,” Kalimba adds, looking just as surprised, and mildly suspicious. She jokingly raises the back of her hand to rest it against Asmeret’s forehead.

Asmeret shrugs, unfazed, and takes a step back away from Kalimba’s offending hand. “I do not envy you, boy.”

Eventually, Nabulungi grabs hold of Kalimba and Asmeret with a hand on each of their elbows and guides them away, telling them that Elder Thomas would probably need some space and chatting about another part of the project she requires their help on.

Once they’ve left, Ghali turns to look at Elder Thomas with a smile. “Still feeling rough?” he asks, trying to move so that his shadow provides a little more shade for him. Elder Thomas nods, looking embarrassed and entirely miserable.

Ghali smiles and encourages him to take another sip of water, dabbing the wet rag against his face again in the least patronising way he can. “I fainted while I was teaching once,” he tells him conversationally. “This was only a little while ago too, you know. I had not had enough to drink. It is very easy to get dehydrated in the sun, especially when you are on your feet.”

“You did too?” Elder Thomas sounds mildly less upset as he looks across at Ghali.

Ghali nods, smiling encouragingly. “Everyone here has been dehydrated, Poptarts,” he tells him, and he’s pleased to see Elder Thomas taking another sip of water. “It happens to us all when we are not careful. And it is not awesome,” he adds, using the term he hears the white boys bandy about all the time.

Elder Thomas gives him the shadow of a smile.

Ghali nudges his shoulder. “You are kind to give up your water bottle for others,” he tells him, because that is genuinely a lovely gesture. “Just make sure that you are hydrated before you give it away.”

“I was just trying to help,” Elder Thomas mumbles, and Ghali rests his hand on his shoulder comfortingly. “I’m so dumb sometimes.”

“You are not dumb,” Ghali says, smile fading, and he gives him a gentle push (which he regrets immediately as Elder Thomas turns vaguely green). “You alright?”

Elder Thomas takes a few deep breaths in through his nose, nods, then shakes his head and bends over to retch over the side of the chair. Ghali rubs his back soothingly, looking up to see where Gotswana has gotten off to. He sees Kimbay hovering nearby, mouthing a quick _‘is he okay?’_ over to him. Ghali nods, shoots her a thumbs up, and Kimbay points towards Gotswana, indicating that she’s going to get him to hurry up, and Ghali nods again, mouthing a thank you.

Elder Thomas straightens up again and leans back in his chair. “Sorry,” he mutters, and Ghali smiles, handing him the rag to wipe his mouth. “Ugh. I’m such an idiot.”

“You are not an idiot,” Ghali tells him, and he rests his hand on his shoulder once again. “All of you boys are so helpful, and that is very sweet, and very good.” He smiles. “You just have to remember that you cannot help other people if you do not help yourself first. What use are you helping a dehydrated Elder Church if you are dehydrated yourself?”

“None,” replies Elder Thomas, with a feeble smile.

“So,” Ghali says, and he knocks their shoulders together, “you need to make sure you look after yourself so that you can look after others, eh? And drink water, otherwise you will faint in front of children and they will first be scared and then they will laugh at you.”

“They laughed at you?” Elder Thomas asks sympathetically, and Ghali nods.

“They still laugh at me now,” he replies earnestly. Elder Thomas winces, but then Gotswana is back with a concerned looking Elder McKinley in tow.

“Let’s get you both back,” Gotswana says as Elder McKinley starts to help Chris up, then adds to Ghali in an undertone, “I have just forced McKinley to drink his water bottle. It was untouched, of course. I will give them a hydration lecture before we start tomorrow, I think.” He exchanges a look with Ghali, then helps Elder McKinley get Elder Thomas upright.

Just before they leave though, Elder Thomas turns to give Ghali a sheepish smile. “Thanks for waiting with me,” he says to him, and Ghali nods.

“I will be over to chat with you tomorrow,” Ghali tells him, grinning. “We will do a Swahili lesson instead of the schoolhouse.”

“Doctor’s surgery,” Gotswana inputs in a cross voice, as Elder McKinley says “meeting place!” in a slightly more diplomatic manner.

Elder Thomas grins, rolling his eyes. “I’m gonna go have a lie down,” he says, and Ghali laughs sympathetically.

“You should do that before you fall down,” he tells him. “That is looking after yourself, you know, and then you will feel better and you can help people here again.”

Elder Thomas nods like it makes sense, then turns vaguely green again, and Ghali hastily jumps out of his way.

\---

The next morning, Ghali goes to the Mission Hut, feeling as though he is walking against the tide as a crowd of white-shirted Elders walk past him, flashing him smiles and uttering bright and cheery hellos as they head off to go to help carry on with the construction of the meeting place.

“He’s feeling a bit better, I think!” Elder McKinley tells him cheerily as he passes, then pauses and adds, “He had enough in him to pick a fight with Elder Church over the dishes this morning, so I think that means he’s on the mend.”

When Ghali arrives at the Mission Hut, he finds Elder Thomas sat at the table in far slouchier clothes than his usual uniform, looking very sorry for himself. “Hey,” he says miserably, and Ghali resists the urge to make any sympathetic noises that could be misconstrued as patronising. He’s pleased to see there’s a glass of water next to him, though he hasn’t yet drunk very much of it.

Instead, Ghali pulls up a seat next to him. “Isn’t today a great day to learn a folktale!” he says cheerfully, and Elder Thomas lets his head slam into the table.

Ghali laughs and reaches out to pat his shoulder. “Come on, Poptarts,” he says, and then he pauses. “I still do not know why they call you Poptarts.”

“You don’t?” Elder Thomas mumbles into his arms. “It’s ‘cause I like ‘em so much.”

“Like what?”

“Pop-Tarts,” Poptarts tells the table surface in a miserable voice.

Ghali makes a noise of understanding, then says, “What the fuck is a Pop-Tart?”

That earns him a gasp. Elder Thomas looks up at him. “You’ve never had a Pop-Tart?” He sounds scandalised.

Ghali grins, glad that he’s managed to get him to talk to him. “No.”

Elder Thomas gets to his feet (he’s a little shakier than usual, so Ghali tries to subtly push the glass of water towards him) and heads to the counter. “This is contraband,” he tells Ghali conspiratorially. “I got my mom to send them over. I’m down to my last two, but you’re important enough to try one.” He busies himself with firing up the gas, and then says, “full disclaimer, you’re supposed to make them in a toaster, but we don’t have one, so if they taste awful, just know that state-side, they taste amazing.”

Ghali nods. “I shall love them either way, probably,” he tells him, and Chris grins. Perching on the table, Ghali smiles at him warmly. “Are you feeling a little better today, Poptarts?”

“I am, thanks,” Elder Thomas replies as he opens a funny looking silver packet and pulls out a rectangular object. “I still feel stupid for letting myself get dehydrated.”

“You are not stupid, Elder Thomas,” Ghali says firmly, and Elder Thomas smiles slightly as he flips the rectangular object. “You are actually very smart. It is nice to see how much you care about everything. You just have to make sure you care about yourself too, sometimes, okay?”

Elder Thomas nods, then hands him a plate. “Here,” he says, popping one of the tarts on the plate, “try this and tell me what you think.”

Ghali nods and bites into one.

Elder Thomas smiles eagerly. “Well?” he asks. “Is that not the best thing you’ve ever tasted?”

Ghali’s smile is a little forced. He nods, and then shakes his head after a moment. “I do not think I will be battling you for the name Poptarts any time soon, you know,” he says, and Elder Thomas turns slightly pink, taking his plate back.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” he says apologetically, and Ghali can’t help it, pulling him into a hug.

“You do not have to say thank you,” he tells him, clapping him on the back. “You just carry on being yourself, and take care of yourself, so that you have a you to be. That is thank you enough for me.”

Elder Thomas nods, and his smile is so warm and genuine, that Ghali feels that sense of fulfillment one normally gets after helping someone out. Elder Thomas is a very worthy person to help out, Ghali thinks. All of these boys are.

“You’re a good teacher,” Elder Thomas says after a moment, and Ghali positively beams. He loves it when he helps people to understand things, and Kimbay is absolutely right - these boys have a lot to learn. Ghali vows now to do his best to help them for the rest of their stay, just as they are trying their best to help them.

\---

Six years after they return to the United States of America, and it is the hottest summer on record according to all of the dramatic montages of sunburnt people eating ice cream in parks. The news is full of dramatic reports with worried looking journalists wearing a lot more makeup than usual in an attempt to conceal their red noses ordering people to wear sunscreen and stay in the shade.

Of course, nobody is taking that advice, preferring instead to go spend time at the beach. Chris knows he would if he had the chance.

Unfortunately though, the news readers are right; the sun can sometimes be dangerous. Chris doesn’t get enough time to really go outside and _see_ the sun, but he _is_ seeing the effects of it on the wards, particularly when a lot of small children are being rushed into hospital with classic symptoms of dehydration. There are teenagers who are perfectly healthy being sent in by anxious parents because they’ve collapsed on the subway, or in classrooms, which seems totally out of the ordinary. When it comes down to it though, a lot of them are in for the same reason: dehydration.

He’s been so busy rushing around and trying to make sure all of his patients are staying hydrated that he almost forgets to keep hydrated himself. He ends up taking his water bottle out of his locker, covering it in fluorescent stickies and tucking it behind one of the computers at the nurses’ station so that each time he comes back to do notes, it’ll be there, shining up at him, reminding him to have a drink.

He doesn’t think about how good an idea this is until the emergency alarm goes off and he rushes to a bay to find that one of the kids has pulled it, one of the CNAs having collapsed.

“Don’t worry,” he says to the physio and the three other registered nurses who come clattering into the room behind him, one of the nurses reaching to reset the alarm, “I’ve got this. Thank you. Thank you, Akash,” he adds to the kid who pulled the alarm, who looks very proud of himself. He’ll get Akash some juice and maybe a cookie in a bit, he decides.

Kneeling next to the CNA, who is blinking dizzily up at him, Chris smiles. “Come on, Josh, let’s get you sitting up, shall we?”

He manages to get Josh off to the staffroom, where he sits him down and passes him a glass of water that one of the other CNAs has got them, encouraging him to take long sips. “That’s it,” he says, smiling. “How much have you had to drink today, Josh?”

Josh’s sheepish expression tells Chris everything he needs to know.

Chris resists the urge to sigh. He’s been hearing about a lot of staff members collapsing in various places around the hospital recently, and he knows that the CNAs do a lot of running about. He’s not surprised they’ve neglected their own health for the sake of making sure their patients are okay. “How’s the dizziness?” he asks, and when Josh nods slowly, Chris smiles, assuming that it probably has only eased off slightly. “Just keep sitting and sipping for a little while.”

“But the ward -”

“Can wait,” Chris finishes for him. “Drink a bit more.”

He sits with him for a little while before Josh mumbles something about shirking off work.

“You cannot work if you are at risk of collapsing,” Chris says firmly. “You need to make sure you’re nice and hydrated, and I know how easy it is to become dehydrated when you’re focusing on other people. But the thing is that you can’t help people if you don’t help yourself, you know? What if you’d been hoisting a patient or something and you collapsed?”

Josh looks guilty, which isn’t Chris’s intention. Chris thinks back to what Ghali told him when he was in Josh’s position, and gives the young man in front of him a reassuring smile.

“It’s important you remain hydrated,” he tells him, “because you’re doing a great job, and you can do an even better job and be even more helpful if you make sure you look after yourself first.” And he means it. Josh is shaping up to be an awesome CNA, and Chris knows he has ambitions to train to be a registered nurse in the future. He’s going to be awesome.

When James picks him up from the hospital once his shift ends (they’re going round to Nabulungi and Arnold’s to have a movie night in, although Chris doesn’t like to admit that he’s absolutely exhausted and will probably end up falling asleep with his head on one of their laps again), Chris is thinking a lot about Kitguli again.

“Do you think Ghali’s teaching now?” he asks as he gets into the passenger side of James’s car.

“Hello to you too,” James says, and Chris gives him an apologetic smile. “I think he must be. He was a good old teacher, wasn’t he?”

Chris nods thoughtfully. Then he turns to James. “Did you drink enough today?”

James indicates the flask of water in his cup holder with a proud expression as he flips the control for the indicator and pulls out of the loading bay.

Chris tuts. “That’s still half full!” he admonishes.

“ _Yeah,”_ James says, dragging the word out, “but I refilled it. Twice,” he adds smartly, a smirk on his face as he thanks a driver for letting them out, “so there.”

Chris supposes that’s okay, and sinks back into the seat. “A CNA fainted at work today.”

“Yikes,” James says, wincing. Then he says, “Remember that time you got heat stroke in Kitguli?”

“It was _not_ heat stroke,” Chris replies, still defensive even years later. “It was dehydration. Heat exhaustion at a _push_ -”

“Uh huh.” James sounds disbelieving.

“Shut up,” Chris snaps, and gives him a light shove. “Anyway, I thought about what Ghali said, right, and he said that the reason I got dehydrated was ‘cause I gave _you_ all my water.”

“Oh, so it’s _my_ fault, now, is it?” James asks, sounding very amused. “I _am_ sorry, Christopher.”

“Not forgiven,” Chris jokes as he rummages in his rucksack just to make sure he’s not left anything back in his locker. “No, it’s just that he told me that like it was sweet that I was trying to look after you guys, but then that the fact that I wasn’t looking after myself meant that I couldn’t help you guys so much. If that makes sense? Like, Connor, he’s a classic example of that. Or Mafala! He’s - he was terrible for that.”

James hums in agreement. “I hope Ghali’s teaching now,” he says softly. “We learnt so much from him. The kids would do well with someone like him, especially since Kimbay did most of his training.”

They arrive at Nabulungi’s about half an hour later, and once they’ve done their hugs, Chris nods to her cellphone, discarded on their island counter. “Hey, do you still have the number for the Mission Hut telephone?” he asks her.

Nabulungi nods, a questioning expression on her face. “Yes,” she says.

“Awesome,” Chris says, before he gives her a smile. “What time is it in Uganda right now? I’ve got someone I need to thank again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final section of the chapter is something that actually happened at my work (I do work in a hospital setting), so I have tried my best to translate it over to the US healthcare setting, although I am more unfamiliar with it, and I am aware that our job roles here might differ slightly, so apologies for any inaccuracies that I may have made!! Basically, please take it with a pinch of salt!!


End file.
